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Bullying, tracking claims in health union

Peter Trute

Bullying, phone tapping and placing "black box" trackers on cars were allegedly common in the ranks of the scandal-plagued Health Services Union (HSU), a corruption hearing has been told.

Current and former employees of the Victorian HSU No.1 branch took the stand at the Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption on Monday claiming they had been frozen out and intimidated by a faction loyal to branch secretary Diana Asmar.

Ms Asmar's barrister, Remy van de Wiel QC, argued some witness statements should not be tendered because they were politically motivated "scuttlebutt" that her political enemies would use through the media - an argument rejected by commissioner Dyson Heydon.

Ms Asmar was in the gallery of the hearing room as a number of former and current underlings gave evidence critical of how she ran the branch and used power.

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Assistant branch secretary and treasurer Leonie Flynn said in evidence she felt undermined and threatened by her boss, Ms Asmar, and was prevented from carrying out her job, which included managing union finances.

Ms Flynn said she was excluded from meetings, ostracised at work and was not made a signatory of branch bank accounts despite her treasurer's role.

In extraordinary evidence, Ms Flynn said she met co-workers at a home in Melbourne's outer suburbs in August, 2013, to discuss problems at the branch.

One colleague refused to have her mobile phone in the house because he believed the phone was tapped "and they could hear what was going on", she said.

Later the same day, Ms Flynn said, Ms Asmar's car pulled in front of hers on busy Lygon St in the centre of Melbourne, then sped off.

Ms Flynn said her colleagues had warned her "they know where you are all the time" and that cars were tracked either by GPS or a "black box" tracking device.

She said she was traumatised by the incident and went on stress leave soon after.

Ms Flynn ran in the 2012 election on the ticket of Ms Asmar's rival Marco Bolano.

Mr Bolano, an ally of HSU whistleblower Kathy Jackson, was unsuccessful in his bid for secretary.

The commission heard from former HSU official Robert McCubbin that when Ms Flynn secured the assistant-secretary role, there was "open discussion" among Ms Asmar's faction of how to get rid of her.

One strategy, Mr McCubbin said in a statement, was that a male union official "would flirt with her and set her up for a sexual harassment claim".